We just saw a new trailer for the gritty fairy tale movie Snow White and the Huntsman, and we've now got our clearest idea yet just why Snow White matters so much to Charlize Theron's evil queen. Plus our first look at the dwarfs!

Advertisement

The trailer begins with Charlize Theron's evil queen Ravenna addressing her mirror, which takes a cloaked humanoid form and darkly tells her what she wants to know: "My queen. Yet another kingdom falls to your glory. My queen, you have defiled nature and robbed it of its fairest fruit. There is still one more beautiful than you. Snow White. She is why your powers wane."

The scene shifts to Snow White's bedroom, where one of the Queen's henchmen tries to take her prisoner. She escapes her captor and the castle, kicking off a huge chase that spans both land and ocean, leading her to take refuge in the Dark Forest, where few ever return alive. The Queen enlists one of the few who has come back alive, Chris Hemsworth's Huntsman. The Huntsman is sure that whoever the Queen wants found has already been killed by the forest, but he has no choice but to do what she commands.

Advertisement

He finds Snow White, but he immediately makes it clear that he is not simply the Queen's hired goon. He asks Snow White why the Queen wants her dead, but the scene then cuts to the pair being captured by the dwarfs, a band that includes British and Irish acting heavyweights like Ian McShane, Bob Hoskins, Toby Jones, and Brendan Gleeson. One of the dwarfs recognizes Snow White as the daughter of King Magnus, and they pledge to help her. They take her to a place known as Sanctuary, the last peaceful, idyllic place in the otherwise desiccated kingdom. The old dwarf declares Snow White the one to save the kingdom from the Queen.

The rest of the trailer shows more of the battle scenes that we've witnessed in previous trailers, though with one big addition: we now get to see more of just what Snow White's liberty means to the Queen. It's been suggested before that she only remains youthful by feeding on those fairer than her, and we see the Queen fall completely apart over the rest of the trailer, including one shot of her suddenly transformed into a dying crone.

Given his background in commercials, it's not exactly surprising that director Rupert Sanders knows how to put together a trailer, and what we saw looked as big, crazy, and Gothic-tinged as the previous trailers. Charlize Theron's Queen still looks like the best part of the movie, but it was good to see more of Kristen Stewart and Chris Hemsworth, not to mention our first look at all at actors like McShane and Jones digitally shrunk down as dwarfs - which is looking much more convincing than I might have expected. I'm still not totally sure how this will all hang together as a complete movie, and I'm still not totally sold on the look of either the Dark Forest or Sanctuary, but I'm guessing there will at least be a bunch of cool-looking moments.